


Seppuku

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Gore, Broken Peter, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Harry is a Little Shit, Hurt Peter, Jealous Sirius, Kid Harry, M/M, Marauders Friendship, Mentor Remus Lupin, Panic Attacks, Peter Feels, Peter Is A Wreck, Peter Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Powerful Harry, Scars, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sirius Needs a Hug, Starvation, Torture, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:10:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Pettigrew never joined the Dark Lord. </p><p>Yet, he was still the reason for his closest friends' demise. </p><p>His own weakness in the face of unspeakable torture, had signed their death certificates. </p><p>And he likely would've ended his own life soon after... if it hadn't have been for Harry. The little boy with James' face and Lily's eyes. Harry needed him. </p><p>So he stayed. </p><p>(A.K.A An AU where Peter was a good person who made a terrible mistake. And Harry grew up loved and happy.) </p><p>“Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you.” </p><p>― Jojo Moyes</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seppuku

  
_"When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear..."_

  
―Bessel A. van der Kolk

 

 

 

 

- **October 31st, 1981** -

 

Peter had begged James not to make him Secret-Keeper.

He'd insisted that he wasn't strong enough.

And he was right.

  
At twenty-one years old, Peter had writhed on the dirty floor of the Malfoy Mansion. Wracked with the most impossible and inconceivable pain that he'd ever experienced. The face of true evil looming above him, laughing, asking him to break, waiting for him to spill his secrets. Peter always was the weakest link after all. But he held on. Or at least, tried too. He held on for all he was worth. Even if his skin felt as though it were being melted away from his charred and blackened bones, his voice gone hoarse from all the godawful screams. He fought, he tried as hard as he could. But it wasn't good enough, it was never good enough. He started to go mad then. Or perhaps he always was.

He saw a destroyed Remus lying before him. Peter's broken, pain-addled mind conjuring up as many comforting figures as it could, only to have the curse steal them all away. He couldn't tell you how many times he'd watched as his best friend was torn apart. He'd wanted to die then. He'd screamed for someone, anyone, to just kill him already. Peter howled like a dying animal as Moony, his Moony, was ripped apart piece by piece in his own mind's eye. Entrails falling, slick and ruddy to the ground, his lovely warm cocoa eyes gouged out, his delicate cheek bones smashed in, flyway waves of tawny hair stained red. Peter screamed, oh how he screamed. Pupils blown wide, mouth open in a soundless shriek. But the images and the pain never stopped.

It never ever stopped.

Sirius was next. His beautiful Padfoot with that long mane of luscious midnight hair that curled up just the slightest bit at the ends, and the little crooked smile that could stop a bloody train. Peter couldn't look away, as Sirius was murdered right before his eyes. His throat was slashed wide open, painting a crimson portrait on the body Peter knew so well. The beloved body he'd christened with every touch and every kiss. The figment of Sirius had looked right at him. Begged him for help, with declarations of love and promises of forever soured on his lips. But Peter could do nothing to save the man he loved.

He'd screamed and screamed and screamed for Sirius.

But the end came anyway.

Perhaps Lily and James were the worst. Given that they came together, precious baby Harry a mangled mess between them. They weren't screaming, or fighting their demise. They were simply laying there, already dead. Garish corpses, mouthed hanging slack, eyes blown open. It was all Peter's fault. He knew then. That he was a monster. He'd killed him with his own uselessness and stupidity. And if he hadn't already, he would soon enough. The fire inside of him burned and tortured, but the hallucinations hurt far worse. Hallucinations that forced him to the brink of madness itself.

He lost himself then. Lost everything. Images, moments, memories, they began bleeding from his mind as though the accursed fire was devouring them. He stopped screaming. He couldn't breathe. Pain was all he was. Pain and fire and chaos and death. He could remember edges, like sharp glass cutting at his fingertips. Madness.

"They're in Godric's Hollow."

The pain stopped. His mind returned, if only just. Still he screamed.

What had he done?! Oh God, what had he done?!

He'd looked up at the Dark Lord, agony running rampant in his eyes. The charm was broken, they didn't need him anymore.

That's when they started slashing him to ribbons. Deep wounds opening up all over his body, blood gushing forth, the likes of which Peter had never seen before. He wept. But not for himself... For the lives he had just ruined, for his own weakness and for the monster within him that had just stolen his humanity.

When the blessed darkness came, he welcomed it.

 

- **X** -

  
Suffice to say, Peter never expected to wake up.

Yet he did.

He woke crumpled and alone, lying in a puddle of his own spilt blood. His body thrumming with agony. His mind cloudy. He was short of breath and could barely keep his eyes open. Everything came rushing back to him like a sick movie reel and he scrabbled around to find a wand. He needed to get to Godric's Hollow, he had to save his friends. Eventually, he managed to find one, not his own of course, he had no idea what had happened to his own wand. But it was enough, or it would have to be. Images of James and Lily pressed down upon him from all sides of his exhausted mind. He was sick, shaky and covered in blood, but he could see it and he wanted to cry. No. No. No. His fault, it would be his fault. He couldn't. He would rather die. Not the Potters, no. Please no.

Apparating in his condition was a bloody terrible idea. He realized that, even before he did it. But he had to get there and he didn't have a portkey or anything else. If he got splinched, so be it. He had to save them. For Merlin's sake, he had to save them.

By the time he got to Godric's Hollow, Peter was in even worse shape than before. It was a miracle that he was even conscious at all. He stumbled through the dark night, only dimly remembering the fact that it was Halloween. A few hot tears carved their way down his cheeks. James had wanted to take little Harry out trick-or-treating, but Lily had wanted to wait till next year. Peter just hoped against hope that there would be a next year for his friends.

But it wasn't to be.

The door was open by the time Peter arrived. And he felt as though he were going to be ill. No. No. No. Please. James' glasses were still on his face when the younger man found him. It almost looked as though he could be sleeping. He was lying on the stairs. Lily and Harry were nowhere to be seen. He must've been trying to protect them. Oh, Prongs. James. God. Why? Peter went weak at the knees and he fell. Kneeling beside his friend's body, hands quivering. No. No. No. James you're twenty-one. You can't be. Oh God...

Bile bubbled up in the back of his throat and he retched. Not at all surprised when it was tinted red and burned on it's way up. He vomited over and over, blood dripping from his broken form and staining the carpet. Lily wouldn't like that. Lily... Lily!! Peter's eyes widened and he staggered to his feet. He had to save Lily. To save Harry. It was too late for James, one of his closest friends was...de...de... No. God. He couldn't think. If he did, he'd only be sick again.

Peter lurched up the stairs, his head swimming and his eyes blurry. From blood loss, exhaustion or tears, he didn't know. Maybe all three.

Oh God, he was sorry. This was all his fault. His fault.

His fault.

He found Lily next to the crib, arms thrown forward as though she'd died trying to protect her son. That wouldn't have surprised Peter. Who wept like an infant the moment he saw her. Great big hiccuping sobs that shook his entire frame. Lily with her fiery red hair and sweet disposition. Lily with the loving smile. Their Lily was just gone. Her life snuffed out like a candle's flame. It was sick. It was cruel and it was unfair. And he'd caused it.

They'd trusted him with their lives.

And he'd failed them.

He was the reason they were dead. He was a murderer. A monster. He deserved nothing but death. How could he have done this?! How? Oh, God.

Peter wailed into his hands, terrified to pick himself up off the floor. Terrified to look in the crib. Terrified he would see a lifeless baby looking up at him. A lifeless child with Lily's dead eyes and James' coloring. He couldn't survive that as well. He just couldn't. Though, given the amount of blood he'd lost by that point, his survival wasn't exactly a given. Still, he had to look. So he forced himself too. And possibly sobbed even harder when he saw a pair of bright green eyes looking up at him. A pair of eyes that were very much alive. Harry was alive.

He was an orphan.

Peter was the reason his surrogate nephew had no parents.

He was the monster who'd just about killed them.

Still, Peter gathered as many blankets as he could find and bundled the toddler into his arms. He had no idea where the Dark Lord was, but knew that the Death-Eaters couldn't be too far behind. His heart positively shook with terror. What if they decided they wanted to finish the job? No. No. No. No way. He wouldn't let them. He had to get Harry somewhere safe. Maybe the Muggle World? He owed it to this child to keep him safe. He owed it to James and Lily.

Peter staggered out of that house of horrors, with a heavy heart, bleeding profusely, exhausted, with a wand that wasn't his own and a surprisingly quiet baby in his arms. A precious little baby with dark hair and snow skin. Little Harry. The baby he'd sung nursery rhymes too. The baby he'd helped learn to crawl. The little child James and Lily had loved with every breath. He would do anything it took to keep this infant safe. Even if it meant confronting the Dark Lord himself.

It was slow going. He wanted to apparate, but didn't quite trust himself at the moment. Especially not with Harry in his arms. The last thing he wanted was for any harm to come to the child. With a shaking hand, Peter caressed the little one's forehead and furrowed his own brow at the sight of the newest addition to the child's face. A lightning bolt mark. How very peculiar.

But he didn't have time to think on it just yet. He didn't have time to think on much of anything. His mind was growing more and more clouded. Blood dripping and leaving a distinct trail wherever he went. Not unlike that Muggle story with the two children leaving breadcrumbs in the woods. Trying to find their way back home. Lily had told Harry that story once. Like Peter's Muggle mother had once told it to him. But for the life of him, he couldn't bring himself to remember the names of the children. He did know that it was a boy and a girl, however. Siblings.

"You."

The familiar voice in the still night, stopped him dead in his tracks. It was hoarse, broken and yet unmistakable. For he'd heard it nearly every day since he was eleven years old.

"Sirius, I... I can explain."

The world was spinning on it's axis again. It was all Peter could do to keep ahold of Harry, as the earth lurched sickeningly beneath him.

"Traitor."

The word was hissed with such venom that Peter almost recoiled from it. The young man standing in the darkness across from him was shaking like a leaf. He was sobbing through gritted teeth, his eyes smoldering like embers. Sirius' wand was pointed directly at Peter's chest. Though it was impossible to tell if he was actually aiming, for his thick dark hair was falling treacherously into his eyes. But the onyx curls couldn't even come close to disguising the tears that fell unheeded. Not when Peter knew that they were mirrored in his own.

"Siri, please. I had no choice!"

His own voice was plaintive, yet deadened, disgusting. He hated himself.

"Don't you dare call me that! You were their friend! They trusted you! I trusted you! I fell in lov...!"

Sirius was shaking even more so then, as his voice broke and tapered off into strained silence. His wand hand quaking. Peter wanted nothing more than to smooth that unruly hair from his beloved's beautiful eyes and press a kiss to his temple, something he'd done so many times before, but would likely never do again. Because he had just destroyed the lives of the people who meant the most to him. He had killed James and Lily with his own weakness, his own worthlessness. A disgusting no-good rat. Come to think of it, maybe that's all he ever was.

"I'm going to kill you!"

Okay.

Peter was ready to lie down and accept his own fate. He would be killed by the man he so deeply loved. What was more justly poetic than that? He thought wryly. Until of course, he remembered the foreign weight of the slumbering baby in his arms. James and Lily's whole world. He quickly moved to give the baby to Sirius, he was Harry's godfather after all. Padfoot would care for the little boy. But the other man didn't see the bundle in Peter's arms. Or maybe he did. Just not in time to stop the Killing Curse as it erupted from his wand.

Peter reacted on instinct, drawing Harry closer to his chest and desperately throwing out his own counter-spell. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar wand in his hand, or the blood loss and exhaustion. But nevertheless, everything around them exploded.

 

- **X** -

 

Of all the places Peter expected to find himself upon awakening;

A Muggle hospital was definitely not one of them.

Yet there he was, lying in a hospital bed, his body sufficiently bandaged and decked out from head-to-toe in all manner of non-magical medical contraption. For the first time in his life, Peter thanked Merlin himself for just being a Half-Blood. Thanks to his Mum's stories and explanations, he wasn't at a total loss. Just a bit confused, but that could always be blamed on the drugs and substantial blood loss.

"Oh! Sir, you're awake!"

Peter focused dimly on the perky young woman moving into his line of sight. She had warm mocha skin and dark hair folded into tiny intricate braids. She was also sporting a strained expression that Peter couldn't quite identify. Her name-tag hanging from around her neck, proclaimed her name to be Tasha.

"Sir, do you know what happened?"

He just stared at her blankly, which apparently was all the answer she seemed to need.

"There was an accident, an explosive device went off and injured several people. Yourself included. There are people investigating as we speak, so don't worry. Everything is going to be alright, for both you and your son."

Peter blinked stupidly. Son? He didn't have a son... No, wait... Harry. HARRY! Everything came rushing back. Being tortured, Sirius, James, Lily... Harry in his arms. Explosion. Their spells colliding. Colors everywhere. Darkness. Pain. So much pain. The monitor beside him began shrilling and Tasha jumped to her feet. He couldn't breathe. Lifeless eyes looking up at him. Sirius calling him a traitor. The Dark Lord's face laughing. He wanted to scream like a banshee, but he had no air left in his lungs. Burning. Burning. Accursed fire. Harry! Orphan. Monster. Murderer. Deserves nothing but death. He gasped, thickly bandaged hands scrabbling for purchase. You killed them! You murderer!

"Sir! Sir! You need to calm down or we'll have to restrain you! You're having a panic attack, try to breathe evenly."

Panic attack? What? Sirius condemning him. His friends being torn apart before his eyes. His heart was beating so fast he thought his chest was going to implode. Dying. Moony was going to wake up after the full-moon to tragedy. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Harry looking up at him. Lily's green eyes bright, so full of life. James laughing. He would never laugh again. Prongs. His fault. It was all his fault. Weak, spineless rat!

There were firm hands forcing something onto his face. Something that enclosed his mouth and nose, funneling air into a body that didn't want to cooperate. His blurry eyes looked up at Tasha. Who was staring back with nothing but pity and concern in her own. He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve her kindness.

"There. Keep that on and it'll make breathing easier. Your son is fine, he only sustained a few bumps and bruises. You took the brunt of the damage. He's resting in our Pedatric ward now, I can go get him if you'd like?"

Tears were coursing down his cheeks, dampening the pillow beneath his head as he nodded. She disappeared from his line of sight then. Leaving Peter alone, with his labored breathing and horrible memories. Harry. Harry was alright. His surrogate nephew was alive. But Peter felt like crying even more so. The toddler would hate him when he grew up. Once he found out that Peter was the weak fool who had killed his parents. Stupid. Worthless. Rat.

"Pie! Pie!"

The familiar nickname spurned Peter to stretch out his bandaged hands as far as they would go. Pie was the name Harry had coined for him. Because 'Peter' had been far too difficult to say. The most he'd ever managed was 'Pie-ta', which soon turned into just Pie. James used to laugh like a hyena every time Harry would shriek Pie at his surrogate uncle. Apparently to Prongs, it had been the funniest thing in the world.

Harry was dressed in hospital cotton, a clear butterfly bandage on his lightning bolt cut and his chubby limbs flailing as Tasha entered the room, before finally settling the toddler into Peter's arms. Harry relaxed into him almost instantly and Peter didn't even mind the pain as Bambi's little feet clipped his bandaged and recently sewn-up wounds. It was worth it, just to feel the little boy alive and unharmed in his arms again. Peter cried silently as he ran his mangled hands over the flyaway unruly hair and beautiful little eyes that shone like emeralds. Harry.

"Pie sad?"

The toddler's voice was confused. But Peter just shook his head, holding the boy even closer. He pinched the nose of the mask on his face, pulling it down so he could whisper to the precious bundle in his arms.

"Hiya Bambi. It's just you and me now. But don't you worry, I won't ever let anybody hurt you. You're my responsibility now Prongslet."

But Harry didn't seem to understand half what was being said to him. Instead, he just rested a pale pudgy little hand on Peter's cheek.

"Pie."

He stated, happily. In a clear concise little voice that made Peter's heart break all over again.

"Yeah buddy... Pie."

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
